All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See 2

by Anthony Doerr
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 06/05/2014
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION


A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II


Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.


Werner is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life, until he discovers a knack for engineering. His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering.


At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in.


Doerr’s combination of soaring imagination and meticulous observation is electric. As Europe is engulfed by war and lives collide unpredictably, ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ is a captivating and devastating elegy for innocence.

ISBN:
9780007548682
9780007548682
Category:
Bestselling Fiction
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
06-05-2014
Language:
English
Publisher:
HarperCollins Publishers
Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr is the author of four books, The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome and Memory Wall.

Doerr's short fiction has won three O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction.

He has won the Rome Prize, and shared the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award with Jonathan Safran Foer.

In 2007 Granta placed Doerr on its list of the "21 Best Young American novelists." Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.

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3.5

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2 Reviews

I'm going to be honest - love for this book didn't hit me straight away. In fact, my first attempt to read it last year ended with me putting it aside and going to find something easier, lighter and less descriptive to read. I know - meh, what a quitter. That's how I would describe it.

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From the very beginning this novel drew me into its pages, creating a world so heartwrenchingly honest that it was easy to believe that it couldve been true and at times I actually questioned it. The heartbreaking story of Werner through his childhood, going to a military school where he thinks he can better himself and only discovering what life is about once hes there and cant leave, was very powerful. Im sure we all studied World War II in high school, heard facts of the devastation it left on countries and the Jews, but you could only imagine just what effect it had on individuals.

Through this book you can get a clearer view of how it changed people, how they survived, what they had to do to get through the war, that it wasnt just black and white. There were powerful forces behind everything that was happening and even if you were German and a Nazi you didnt know the whole facts of why there was a war and went into it just as blind as the next person. This book showed that perfectly through the two main characters that were on opposite ends of the war. You werent hearing only one side, like most war novels, you got to see that both sides (the Germans and the French) were equally effected, although in different ways in some respects.

Through the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure, you could see the similarities, their experiences in love, loss and personal struggle so much so that you had no trouble jumping from one story to the other. That was one thing that made the story so easy to fall into: the short chapters. You had no chance of becoming bored or wondering what was going to happen in the other persons life. It made the story run quicker with a chapter being only a few pages long and yet so profoundly descriptive you were left wanting more. But when you started the next chapter you took off right where you left off and it was like you never left Werners story or Marie-Laures because the transition from one persons point of view to the next was easily adaptable.

The characters were thought provoking and raw and made it easy to believe in them. You see them as young children and watch them as they have to adapt to the harsh reality of war before they have a chance to grow up. And each character that Werner and Marie-Laure come into contact with leaves a small mark in their history and are remembered throughout the book. No character was too big or too small. They all meant something. And at the end of the book you see the connections between the characters; that one small thing had a ripple effect.

I should also note that this book isnt completely about a war. Its about two people who live through the war, who discover things about themselves and become stronger as individuals when they realise who they are.

All the Light We Cannot See is an emotionally driven story. A powerful story that will have you feeling heavy of heart and yet utterly refreshed. Its one for the memory bank, and one that will be hard to compete with in its storyline.

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